In hands-free (or touch-free) dispensers, a liquid or foam pump is activated by an actuator through a drive cycle to dispense a dose of fluid. Typically the drive actuator is powered by a direct current (DC) motor with a drive train formed of gears or other mechanical means. The drive train (including the motor) strokes or spins the pump.
The public's growing concern with disease and its transmission has generated increased public awareness regarding the need for sanitization and hygiene in general. In addition, various marketers in the hygiene industry believe that with increased public awareness and education, cleansing, and especially hand cleansing, will continue to be a subject of increasing scrutiny.
Whether it is the possible transmission of E. coli in the food services industry, healthcare acquired infection (HAI) related diseases within healthcare facilities, or even the transmission through ordinary physical contact made during a simple handshake, there are numerous studies citing proper hand hygiene as an effective way to guard against disease transmission. Indeed, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) concluded that hand washing is the single most important factor in the prevention of disease and in the reduction in the spread of infection.
Non-compliance with established hand washing protocols, in for example, food service industries, is a serious problem, which can lead to expensive and sometimes fatal consequences. Each year, food-borne illness strikes 76 million people, causes 325,000 hospitalizations, and kills thousands. In particular, 70% of the outbreaks originate in the food service sector and 40% of these outbreaks are the result of poor hand washing and cross-contamination (oral/fecal).
In addition, the CDC estimates that healthcare acquired infections (HAI) cost, on average, $35,000 per incidence from extended medical costs alone. The CDC also estimates that the occurrence of HAI infections can be reduced by one-third when infection control practices that include hand hygiene compliance measurement are implemented. That is, the CDC estimates that one third of all HAI infections are caused by poor adherence to infection control practices, such as hand washing. The CDC estimates that the annual costs to the public health system, personal pain and suffering, and lost productivity that result from food-borne illness and HAI infections are estimated to be as high as $83 billion annually. Approximately two million hospital patients annually become infected while being treated for another illness or injury, with approximately 120,000 of these patients dying. The CDC estimates that these infections or illnesses add nearly $4.5 billion to U.S. healthcare costs annually.
The monitoring of hand washing by individuals who are identified by electronic badges or data tags and then associating the badges or tags and individuals with the use of hygiene dispensers is known in the art. In addition, usage indicating or counting dispensers, such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,375,038, provide a soap or sanitizer dispenser having a usage indicator that tracks the number of times the dispenser has been used. Usage indicating or counting dispensers have experienced minor acceptance in the marketplace due to the burden of the manual recording and analysis of the count data from each dispenser. For example, a typical healthcare or food processing facility could have hundreds of dispensers and a similar number of individuals.
There are a number of automated system providers for hygiene compliance monitoring systems that use dispensers equipped with wireless communication circuitry for transmitting dispense events and user identification means to a central computer to record and analyze the usage data. Each of these systems utilize different types of communications protocols, transmitters, and the like. These automated system providers often use dispensers that are manufactured by one or more dispenser manufactures. Accordingly, for a dispenser manufacturer to work with all of the providers, the dispenser manufacturer must stock multiple dispensers, some equipped with compliance monitoring features for provider A, some equipped for provider B, etc. and may also stock some that are not equipped with compliance monitoring systems. Having multiple skews and products increases manufacturing complexity, increases required inventory, and the like, all of which drives up costs.
Several dispenser providers/system providers provide separate self-contained units that are mounted below the dispensers. The self-contained units sense an output and communicate that the dispenser has provided an output and may also identify an identifier indicative of the individual that received the output.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,558,701 discloses a compliance module with a connector that may be coupled to a dispenser through a communication port that has a dispense event signal and power at the communication port. However, not all dispensers have a dispense event signals and power at a communication port. In addition, not all dispensers have a communication port.